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Evernote for Windows update

Posted by Andrew Sinkov on 03 Jun 2010

Posted by Andrew Sinkov on 03 Jun 2010

Evernote for Windows just got a fantastic update. This release (v 3.5.4) introduces a bunch of new functionality aimed at making Evernote more pleasant and easier to use. That’s all on top of tons of performance and stability improvement. Let’s get into what’s new.

Hiding unassigned tags

Some people like seeing all of their tags in the tag list. Others would prefer to only see those that are assigned to notes. Now you get to choose. Right click on the tag panel, or click on the View menu, and select Hide Unassigned Tags. Doing this makes the tag panel dynamic, only showing you tags that are assigned to notes related to your filters and searches. For example, if you choose a notebook or perform a search, only tags that are assigned to the resulting notes will display.Tip: Finding tags fast with the Hide Unassigned Tags feature
A power-user request that we get fairly frequently is tag search. The Hide Unassigned Tags feature together with Evernote’s search gets you pretty close. With the Hide feature enabled, type a tag name into the search bar. Instantly, all tags that (a) do not contain that word and (b) aren’t assigned to notes that contain the word will disappear. This is particularly effective for uniquely named tags.

Easier to use interface

We’ve made a number of, immediately obvious, improvements to the note panel.

The note title is now much easier to edit

The notebook selector is now next to the note title, letting you easily move the note

New magnifying glass icon shows you when images and PDFs have been indexed

Premium feature: Note history

Recently, we unveiled the Note History Premium feature, which allows you to access previous versions of your notes (read about it here). The new Windows updates lets you easily view your note history without leaving the application. Click on the chevrons to the right of the note title to expose the note info panel. Next, click on the note history link. Please note, you need a network connection in order to view your note history.

Where in the world…

Whenever possible, Evernote attaches location information to your notes. If you create a lot of notes on your phone, then chances are that they have a location assigned. Previously, this location information was represented as longitude and latitude coordinates. In this new release, we do some geo-magic on those coordinates, and figure out the actual city or region that you were in. This makes it a lot easier to jog your memory without forcing you to jump to a map. Of course, the map option is always available, if you need it.

Default font

This is a fairly nuanced feature, but one that’s worth knowing. Not all computers and devices have the same fonts available. To keep your notes looking right, Evernote for Windows lets you select “default” as a font option (it’s the first one in the font drop down). This means that the typeface of the note will be whatever the default font is in the version of Evernote that you are using. If the default font is set to Arial on computer A and Trebuchet on computer B, then the text of the note will appear in Arial on A and Trebuchet on B. You can set you default font under Tools > Options > Display.

Better tables

Tables received a welcome upgrade in this release. You have been able to create them for some time, now you can easily add or remove columns and rows.

More to come

We have a lot more Windows update excitement in store this summer. Get ready.

Glad to hear there’s more Windows excitement coming this summer … sounds good

Victoria Marinelli—

If you still haven’t restored the “Subject Date” field from 3.1, I’m still not interested. For the life of me, I can’t understand why your idea of “improvement” seems to require the stripping of entirely crucial functionality.

DH—

Yes,PLEEEEASE give us a date field we can use for our own purposes, and allow us to filter and sort thereby within notebooks, in all versions including mobile… Please, please, please. With sugar on top.

El Ponderado—

Sounds like a great update!
Still waiting for inter-note links (wiki feature) though.

Dave Yuhas—

I’ll second that.

Cath—

Me too!

John—

Inter note links!!! Please bring this back!!

Lee—

Inter-note links is my most wanted feature too! I frequently go add updates to a note that was recorded days (or weeks) earlier and I would very much like to be able to point to the previous note.

Lee—

Related suggestion: sometimes I update notes with new data on a recurring basis. It would be really useful to have a button that drops a date stamp into the note at the cursor position so that each update is tagged with its modification date

DougP—

If you use a Mac, try textexpander as an app – you can assign a keystroke to any number of stored text strings (or combinations with graphics (ie logos on signature etc etc) – date and time are two of the many std ones supplied… just type “ddate” and “ttime” and as it just did on this psot, up comes September 20, 2010 1:50 PM No interest in TE – just a happy customer…

Charles Hundley—

Another update without inter-note links. I give up. Off to delete Evernote.

Shelley Cook—

Great updates! I’m glad to see the hiding unassigned tags feature.
For future updates, is there any way you can set desktop versions to assign a location?
For example, I have Evernote on both my work PC and Home laptop (a mac). When I save notes at work, typically they are relevant to work only. Being able to set that lat/long location in the local software would really help me sort notes so I could tell which ones I created at work, versus which ones were made at home. I already use the location feature on my iPhone, but it would be nice to have it set for home as well.
Thanks for all of the hard work, you guys really make my premium membership worth every cent!

Crysti—

What about the File Import Wizard? Has this been re-added?

Rich—

Great news, but how about a linux version?

BabsBabsBabs—

Just FABULOUS! And, ok, I FINALLY became convinced to order a SCANSNAP! It’s due to arrive TODAY and I can hardly wait! I ordered it from Amazon, and since I already have premium I just ordered the thing! Really like the ability to be able to assign a note easily to a notebook in this new update. Thanks for your hard work! Babs

Monika Grasley—

Is there anyway to make the “to do” checklist searchable? I love using Evernote, but when I have things to follow up with I am not sure how to tag it, except with the ‘to do’ checklist, I would love to search my Evernotes for outstanding ‘to do’s’

Thank you

Andrew Sinkov—

You can quickly find to-dos by typing the following into the search bar:

That was very useful information, thanks! I was wondering how to find all my unfinished to-dos just this afternoon!

savagemike—

These three choices are also available in the attributes panel under “contains” if you don’t want more syntax to memorize.

Scott.—

The ability to hide tags that are not related to the current notebook, etc. is enough to make this update worthwhile. I love tagging and it looks like it should be much easier to utilize now, thank you!

Juan—

When can we expect update for Mac version?

Ben—

No Subfolders

Jenni—

I agree – we really need sub-folders!

Ed—

Yes subfolders would be very very helpful ! as well as sorting my memos alphabetically within a first alphabetically sorted folder!

I explain myself: one can first alphabetically sort the folders but not the memos that are then automatically sorted by date of creation within the folders!

Why not being able to edit the memos in my iPhone and only in my PC or MAC?

Last but not least! Why not having the memos in my iPhone and only in the server! Many times I had no WIFI or 3G in remote locations and could not use my memos!

Thanks

Ed

Ray G—

How about hiding borders in tables so that when I layout my pictures in a note, they look really professional.

Andrew Sinkov—

Thanks for the suggestion.

unit seven—

Or you can throw your table together in an html editor with whatever background and border styles you like and then paste into Evernote.

I have a note in called Evernote template elements that has a bunch of tables and other set template elements which I copy-paste into notes quite often and now that I can add col/rows to those template tables this just become soooo much more powerful so thanks!

I can email this note to you as an .enex if you would like?

Deb—

I would be interested in learning how you are using tables copied and pasted into EN as a note templatez. Would you mind sharing with me?

unit seven—

Hi Deb,

How much HTML do you know?

If you create a table in Evernote and export to an exex file you should then be able to add colours and modify borders in the html before bringing back into Evernote.

Another option I have found works pretty well is creating tables in OpenOffice Calc and these paste quite well into Evernote.

Once I have created a bunch of these reusable elements I keep them all in one note called Evernote template elements which I can then copy them into other notes for use.

If you download the following Evernote Export file you should be able to import this into Evernote to get my current template.

This is actually two templates – the first part (own to an d including “Project Notes” of this is kept on the network as a enex file to be imported using a batch file and enscript.exe on the desktop. This is run everytime a new job comes in and is then filled out by the appropriate person.

The second part including and below “Below are a bunch of useful sample elements to copy:” are kept in Evernote as a note to copy the elements from.

Maybe the folks at Evernote could think about hosting a shared notebook for addition of template Evernotes for users to contribute to and download?

Samer—

One feature I really miss …
In previous versions when I clipped something or added it to Evernote a small panel appeared near the system-tray in which i could tag the note immediately. now the panel appears with a close button and Evernote’s icon … which opens up the note when u click it, to tag it from there. I miss the feature of tagging the note without actually opening it & disrupting the work.

thanks for a great software can’t live without it

Ingo—

+1 Vote

Stanislav—

Yes, please! I miss that too.

Aaron—

I’m glad the tables have been improved, but I probably still won’t use them until somethings been done to improve cell navigation. It drives me crazy that the down-cursor takes me to the cell on the right instead of the cell below.

John—

Agree!

hbrooksh—

I would love to see the ability to add meta data to the to-do items (Due date, %complete, tags). If you did that, I would scrap my to-do application and use evernote for everything.

Yuko—

As somebody reported, with this update, you can drag and drop text files into Evernote to create new notes, and text contents become the contents of new notes, not embedded attachments. This is great! But I found later that Japanese text got garbled.

David O'Keefe—

If by “more excitement in store for the Summer” you mean sub-notebooks, I may just re-subscribe to Premium. Otherwise, I’ll just keeping waiting for something else to come along.

Alan Vallis—

Anything to confess about EN for Linux?

Toyota Man—

Evernote just keeps getting better and better! Having said that… I too would love to see the ability to add meta data to the to-do items. This would allow me to have more of my life online and offline managed and organized using Evernote.

Dan, our support team should be able to help you out with this http://s.evernote.com/support

Bruce—

Andrew,

I’m having the same problem – trying to update to 3.5.4 on XP Pro hangs up (get repeating message “retrieving messages list 0%”, “then 100%”). But when I go to Evernote Support site there is no advice or insructions on how to solve the problem.

Anyone have a solution??

Thanks!!

Speedy—

What about performance…has it improved yet? I went back to 3.1 because the newer versions were just too slow. I’d love to hear feedback from real users out there.

Patrick J. Kiger—

That’s my biggest discontent with Evernote, too. The search function in 3.5 is really, really slow. That’s one huge advantage that Info Select and MS One Note have, even if Evernote is superior in every other way.

Another problem that I’d love to see you correct…the only way I can import .pdfs is to email them in, and then sync with the cloud. It’d be much better if you could simply import them directly into the HD-based Evernote.

HiTechRedneck—

I love the hiding unassigned tags feature!!

zorin—

would love the hiding unassigned tags feature if it wasn’t hiding all sub-tags. Even if sub-tags have something assigned to it.

I use a lot the sub-tag system and so far the hiding looks not compatible with the hiding feature.

Thanks,

Diseño Web Tenerife—

Sounds like a great update!I’m glad to see the hiding unassigned tags feature.

Nerm—

Any updates for Windows Mobile please? I was very excited when you announced all versions updated as I use Evernote across multiple platforms, however WinMo seems to be left out in the cold.

Chris—

How about a fix for NVIDIA Quadro NVS video card compatibility issue?

Bruce—

3.5.4 won’t install properly. I have uninstalled the earlier version. I have installed 3.5.4. Program boots up but then starts an endless cycle of posting this message in the lower left corner of the screen:
“retrieving messages list 0%”, then “retrieving messages list 100%”, bask and forth, back and forth, and my computer hard drive continues to spin and spin and spin and the computer fan kicks in since the computer is overheating. Solutions anyone?? THanks!!

Andrew Sinkov—

Bruce, please contact our support team: http://s.evernote.com/support

Jonathan—

Gah! The new ‘default font’ thing has screwed up all my notes. Suddenly they are all 14 pt Arial.

AND it seems no way to change it, even when changing the default setting – they all stay at ugly huge 14pt size.

What’s up with that, Evernote?

Andrew Hilborne—

Me too! This 14-point default font (seems to be for imported html or html fragments, in particluar) HAS to go, or be alterable.

Gee—

I’d really love the ability to completely hide or protect a folder or hide/protect a entire note.

Hope this gets implemented in the next version.

Tom Manderson—

Would you be able to make the “Hide Unassigned Tags” feature notebook specific? For example, I would like to be able to drag a tag from the panel onto a note in my “Inbox” notebook for sorting

Henry—

I see you often get the request for tag search. Please also add my vote for that.

Probably suggesting this two years too soon:

Please add a the ability to show the tags list as a mindmap view. That would make (re)organizing and finding tags very easy. You might have a lot of mindmapping and GTD fans for this idea.
Perhaps your partner Mindmeister can help. Although considering you have nested tags the logic seems almost there already in Evernote.

Chris Doig—

How about folders so we can group saved searches? My list of save searches is used all day, but it has got too long. The ability to group saved searches in folders would help a lot.

Adam W—

Hi, I was wondering what ever happened to the ability to edit an image, a good while ago I could resize images from the windows application but now I can’t seem to figure out to change the size. Use case is I take a large picture on my phone and then resize the image to what I want on the desktop.

Thanks!
Adam

Mark—

I check every new release for the restoration of “Subject Date”, but remain disappointed that I have to stick with 3.1. Evernote’s repeated “vanishing feature” strategy keeps me hoping that a competing product will surface that shows more respect for user’s existing data.

Chris—

How about a fix for NVIDIA Quadro NVS video card compatibility issue?

is this still an issue?

Amnon Greenfeld—

I cannot upgrade my Evernote for Windows XP. Tried several times, but always get rejected because the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 SP1 cannot be installed on my computer.
How can I work around this matter?
Thanks in advance for any helpful tips,

Amnon

Sergei—

one lacking feature that prevented me from using 3.5 and onwards in the past was inability to easily select a tag by starting typing (when I am in tags section), which I have in 3.1 and which is very useful and easy to use. Has it been fixed now?

Jeff—

that’s great news

M. Liebermann—

Finally Evernote (optionally) only shows tags assigned to one notebook. I love this feature – have been waiting for it. But to me it looks like you have only gone half the way to implement it properly.

As soon as one works with nested tags, the feature gets confusing. Evernote shows the complete tree structure up to the final tag, and also the numbers of notes tagged – but for ALL notebooks. If I click on that tag, of course no notes show (if the tagged notes belong to another notebook). Also, all tags disappear from the list and I have to reset the viewing options so all tags are shown again.

* The number of notes assigned to a tag should only show those of the chosen notebook.
* I also very much preferred the tag view of version 3.1., where the tags assigned to a certain notebook were marked black, but all other tags shown in grey. Instant visual control!
* To me this issue is part of another problem. EN allows nested tags, but the respecting parent.tags are not assigned. This effectively hinders a consistent categorization and slows down tagging.

Otherwise I’m quite happy with the Beta. Hope to see a “due date” or something similar soon.

ScottL—

I’ve been using EN for about a month and am really enjoying it – I’d love to see tag search inheritance for sub tags. In other words, when I search on a parent tag, notes with children tags appear in the search. As it stands, you need to tag a note with both the parent and child tags to get the note to appear when searching for notes with a parent tag.

Steve Lubetkin—

I would also vote for category inheritance. If I have a category hierarchy like this:

Main Topic
– Subtopic A
– Subtopic B

and either of the Subtopic tags is checked, then a search on the Main Topic should show any items that are associated with the subtopic. That would be a great enhancement.

Robert Siekmann, Jr—

Still no “Draw”, no adjusting of capture area, no below-the-fold capturing, not the old skool balloon with straight to email/delete/tag, no save-image-to-file, no left-mouse click on system tray logo, etc. etc.

3.1 FTW, 3.5 sucks hard.

Randy—

Please, please, please put back “Subject Date”. Or at least explain to all those of us out here who would otherwise love to go to 3.5 and feel stuck on 3.1 what your line of thinking was when you removed it. That kind of architecture change should never have happened unannounced in a “dot” release, and it really shakes our faith and confidence in committing to further use of Evernote.

Matthew—

I’m still using EN 3.1 for all my regular stuff. I have a Dual Core CPU and plenty of ram, but the latest EN Windows version is such a memory and CPU hog that it is just unusable. It’s too slow and the fonts look fuzzy and ugly.

I suggest you rewrite the program. It truly is sub-par and you’re lucky that there’s no serious competition, else I would have switched a long time ago.

Get your Windows version up to par please!

Andrew Hilborne—

Will you please, please back out the font size changes? Alternatively, give us the opportunity of overriding them.

I understand that cross-platform compatibility is important and this is an attempt to increase that. It just happens to be broken. I must be amongst _thousands_ of people who curse every time they clip a new note (on Windows at least) and find it’s ALL TOO BIG

Hmm—

v3.5 seems to be a step backwards from v3.1. Some new features may have been added, but the user interface is clearly much worse and some features that people have been using have been removed, such as the rolling view of note and the Subject Date. Evernote is wonderful software, but you will have to fix this situation or you will alienate your current user-base.

Joel Fairbank—

I was able to change all my Evernote Note’s font to Arial 10 simply by going to: Options>Display>Font – Note and change it to Arial 10. All my notes changed.

But it looks as if I have .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, yet Evernote fails to find it. At least the files are there in C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv3.5Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. What can I do about it?

youidiots—

ummm i think resizing images is kinda important. Why did you get rid of it. You should at least mention something about it!

juzerneem—

If you want to resize an image from the Windows client you can rightclick it-choose Open With (an editor, I use XnView)-resize it and save it back to the database with the original name.